Woodblock Printing demonstration with Reuben Saunders and Leon Loughridge

joining us today in the gallery is Leon law fridge he's a nationally known print maker from the Denver area he's going to be demonstrating a form of block printing Japanese form of block printing now I wanted to start by first asking Leon what it was that attracted him to this medium it's very time consuming it's very tedious it requires multiple steps to produce one piece of art and it has lots of room for failure so so what is it Leon that what made this so interesting to you to begin with what excites me most about woodblock printing is process there's a love developing an image from a rough sketch most of what I create is started from watercolor sketches I do outdoors I take those sketches and then develop the idea and kind of expand on that concept that idea that statement is I've kind of created my own little sketch pad my traveling studio as I say it's a folder that opens up I have my sketchbook at my brushes most of the brushes have velcro so that I don't leave them alongside the trail and there's my watercolor pad palette my water and everything and a lot of what I'm doing is note-taking I'm looking for shapes I'm looking for abstract shapes outdoors I need looking for the vertical aspect of the Aspen's relief printmaking is one of the very basic forms of printmaking one of the earliest forms of printmaking it's where the the areas that do not print are carved away from the flat surface from the carved wood block from the wood block these low areas do not receive the ink the high areas will receive the ink and then when the paper is laid on top of the block and pressure is applied Inc that's on the raised areas transfers to the paper and that's the basic concept of relief printing what people most traditionally think of as color woodblocks is where there is a block for each color if there are six colors there will be six different wood blocks so this block printed the green this block printed the red over the green and this block printed the black over the two previous colors so there's a block for each color and you can see in this green in the red that prints over the green now I have a third color a darker red so just by 2 I end up with three colors the key block the line block adds a lot of the definition I tend to prefer what's called as reduction wood block and you're using one block printing a color carving away printing another color now it's the minute it's that block is carved a second time you cannot go back this block is a great this block is in process and as a great example of the eight colors creating far more than just the eight colors I've been printing with if you if I take I'm always printing with transparent layers of ink and if I print one layer over the other if I print blue over yellow that's going to create green these Peaks in the background were this very pale green and then I printed a light purple over that to get this wonderful brown so now by printing a yellowy green and this pale purple I now have one two three colors by just printing two because I'm mixing on the paper I'm mixing on my palette to create that green I'm mixing on my palette to print the purple but then I'm mixing on the paper to create this brown this tan of the peaks that thought of of the sketch being art the watercolor sketch outdoors at immediate interaction and that is art and I come into the studio and start this tedious process of a woodblock and that's craft and I don't necessarily agree with that to me the process of building the woodblock is as every bit as creative as when you're outdoors reacting quickly to what's happening in front of you it's just in the studio you're in major slow motion these are some of my favorite carving tools you would be surprised how few tools I have if you look in my drawer I probably have 20 to 30 different carving tools of those tools that I use only six a lot of people have this vision of me tediously carving away no I I tend to kind of go after it with some reckless abandon if I'm not spontaneously carving if I'm not really going after the woodblock that I'm I'm sinking into this academic non-expressive statement there's a number of stages that my woodblock seem to go through they'll start off and I'll just be yes yes this is so right the first color on the second color on the third and fourth color run really start defining form and everything starts to have happened and then right around the sixth-seventh color on it hits this ugly duckling stage and I just oh my goodness what am I making but I'm a I'm progressing through the values and that's when I need to step into the darks and the minute I start putting those darks in it comes alive again so I'm always going through these ups and downs as I'm creating these images and it's it's always rewarding that you can come out of that ugly duckling stage and put a dark color in there and suddenly it comes alive and that becomes exciting well thank you lay on for this short but very informative little lesson so if you have questions about this you can find us on our website Reuben Saunders gallery and Leon on his website which is DC art press comm right and so I think almost any question could be answered by going there and looking us up and sending us an email and we'll try to answer your questions thank you you

Channel: Reuben Saunders Gallery

Views: 21,058

Rating: 4.8766518 out of 5

Keywords: Printing (Industry), Woodblock Printing (Visual Art Medium), Reuben Saunders, art, artworks, Printing Press (Invention), Leon Loughridge, Gallery, The Arts (Broadcast Genre), Paint, Painting, Drawing, Fine Art (Industry), Artist, Drawings, Sculpture, Paintings, Artwork, Prairie Print Makers, Norma Bassett Hall

Id: q8Q9wZGPs5g

Length: 8min 4sec (484 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 30 2015